


wishes are dreams and dreams are pretend

by AlmondBlossomsTC



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, So science and reason win out in the end, This is old haha I didn’t realize I hadn’t posted it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:07:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29828169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlmondBlossomsTC/pseuds/AlmondBlossomsTC
Summary: (EXPANSION ON SAGSCRIB’S DREAMLAND VERSE)Taichi and Alter Ego work together to bring back approximations of the students lost in THH. Takaaki does his best.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	wishes are dreams and dreams are pretend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sagscrib](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sagscrib/gifts).



The others closed their eyes, but Takaaki’s remained open. He was holding one of the electrodes just away from his temple, frozen in place. For weeks, now, they’d been preparing for this. Taichi had coaxed him along in interviews to gain information for the simulation, first with himself and then with the Alter Ego interface. Takemichi and Hiroko had both done their best to ease him into the idea. He’d barely slept after getting Taichi’s message the previous night that the system had finally come online. 

“Um, Mr. Ishimaru?” Still the awkward formality, even after years. Taichi had tried to close the gap a number of times, but no, he was at capacity for connection, thank you. His... ‘friends’ didn’t cover it, ‘family’ came with the expectation of further subcategorization that he was still unwilling to look at. His people. Too many had wormed past his wall already, and while he wouldn’t trade them for almost anything, he had no room for more. 

“Mr. Ishimaru?” Right. That. Lost in introspection again to avoid the world - a terrible habit of his. “You’ll need to fully attach the headset for it to work.”

He could have sat up, could have opted out. Even if Fujisaki would judge him for it, he wouldn’t care. But no. His cowardice had already cost him his son once. 

“Alright.” 

Cold EEG gel against his skin, and- 

  
  
  


A door. The world formed slowly, but the door was the first thing he opened his eyes to. Letting the rest render, he worked with his avatar for a moment, moving his hands and arms, feet and legs. There was a slight delay between his mind and his motion, but it was preferable to arthritis. 

Things sharpened at last, a plaque on the door coming into view. Kiyotaka Ishimaru. Not that he’d expected anything different. 

He needed to knock. He almost had, on instinct, as soon as he’d loaded in, but he stalled yet again. A simulation of his lost son was behind that door. So many things were wrong about this situation. 

It could be that Fujisaki’s creation would barely resemble Kiyotaka’s mannerisms. He hasn’t been an easy personality to reduce to generalizations for the sake of coding responses. This was a much more complex program than Takaaki could wrap his mind around, but surely a computer couldn’t make a  _ human being _ realistic enough to scan with confidence. 

Yes, that would be the most merciful situation. To go in, have a brief conversation with whatever automaton Fujisaki had constructed, and leave. 

His knuckles made sharp contact with the door- and he almost fell forward when it opened before his second strike could fall. 

Kiyotaka had clearly been waiting just inside the entranceway to his simulated dormitory. There he stood, looking excited to the point of tears, grinning up at Takaaki. 

“Mr. Fujisaki told us today was the day!” he exclaimed, lower lip trembling. “I’ve been waiting- please, come in! I can’t take shape past the threshold.”

And yes, Takaaki had known that this was a possibility as well, looking helplessly down at his son, 19 again and unscathed. That everything would be perfect, much better than the world outside, and that he would never want to leave. 

“He... told you?” he asked, weakly, letting his hand fall to his side but not stepping forward. The- Kiyotaka seemed to falter, making to come to him but correcting himself. Instead, the program nodded. 

“He did! We’ve been having regular conversations to make sure everything is running properly. It would be quite traumatic for you to be having a normal conversation and to have my hands disappear because we hadn’t coded a gesture properly! The whole point is to have an immersive experience!”

Takaaki stared helplessly down at him. Immersive. And a technical error would break that, in theory, would stop him from connecting properly with the simulation. Would make him remember that these 1s and 0s were not Kiyotaka Ishimaru, but pixels, pretending. As if he could ever forget. 

To his dismay, he felt a migraine forming, distantly. In his real body. He realized all at once that he’d been clenching his teeth hard enough to hear the muscles in his jaw creak. 

Red eyes looked up at him worriedly. “P-?”

“I don’t know if I can do this,” he admitted, cutting off his- “How do I disengage?”

“Oh-!” And no, please, no, why on earth would Fujisaki have given it the ability to cry- “I- if you need to go, I can- but-!” Yes, the Kiyotaka in front of him was having clear signs of an oncoming meltdown. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you!”

“Meeting,” Takaaki parroted, looking down at the medal that he’d helped his son fasten more times than he could count. 

The program nodded vigorously. “I’ve wanted to see you since the day I was made! Mr. Fujisaki told me all about you! And the memories that you told him about,

I have-“

“You aren’t… real.” He could barely force the words out, looking down at his frantic son. There was bile in his throat. “You aren’t-“

“Kiyotaka Ishimaru, and I believe in bold simplicity!” The program cut him off, desperately, but with a painfully familiar stubborn set to his jaw. “I was born on August 31st, was enrolled in Kaiseidan High School until being accepted into Hopes Peak Academy as the Ultimate Moral Compass, and I am 19 years old! My favourite colour is red, my favourite food is tamagoyaki with peppers and mushrooms, and you are my father and I’ve been waiting weeks to see you! I’m as real as I know how to be!”

The rant ended and he looked up at Takaaki, tears on his cheeks, chest heaving. There was no adequate response that he could give. 

“You told me you didn’t like the mushrooms,” he settled on, helplessly. 

Kiyotaka… smiled, just barely, still sniffling. “I didn’t want you to have to eat yours plain.”

Fujisaki had told him that the simulation had the ability to sift through some of his unconscious memory for better realism. But he couldn’t deny any longer - this was as close as he could get to seeing his son again. This was the only remaining version of him. 

He tried to disguise a small sob by itching his eyebrow. It was foolish to think that he could have refused even an approximation of Kiyotaka anything. Exhausted by the anxiety of the leadup and the gut punch of seeing his boy again, Takaaki shook himself. He met his son’s hopeful eyes briefly, and asked, “I’m getting too old to lean down. Do you have a shoehorn?”

Kiyotaka beamed. 

  
  
  
  


His simulated room seemed very accurate. Orderly stacks of paper and notebooks on the small desk, perfectly neat bed, half-drunk cups of water scattered about the surfaces. Kiyotaka sat on the bed while Takaaki opted for the lone chair. Once arranged, they both seemed to struggle with what to talk about. 

After a few long moments, which Takaaki used to look at his son’s cleanly pressed pants, Kiyotaka started. “You aren’t wearing your tie,” he pointed out, ever a fan of the obvious. 

He was still adjusting to hearing his son’s voice again - he flinched at the sound. “Yes,” he agreed, uselessly. “We were told to dress comfortably.” Hiroko had almost managed to talk him into a sweater, but his button down was a sorely needed familiarity. 

Kiyotaka’s expression was vaguely wistful. “It’s so strange to see you without it. And not just that. You look so different - all of you!”

Of course - it had been seven years since they parted for, unknowingly, the last time. The semester that Kiyotaka had never returned from. Now, he was swiftly approaching 50 years old. A milestone that his son could never reach. Here he sat, perfectly preserved, while his father withered away. 

Takaaki squeezed his eyes shut as Kiyotaka continued. “Your hair is all grey now. Remember how grandfather used to dye his black? And you look so much healthier. I’m very glad!” 

“I’m taken care of quite diligently,” Takaaki admitted, fighting to stay composed. “I’ve been employed with…” Surely he would have been programmed with knowledge of Future Foundation. “And the former captives keep an eye out for one another, when possible.”

“Captives…” Kiyotaka murmured. His eyes scanned side to side rapidly for a moment, as if he was reading, processing. Then, he seemed to re-engage, brightening. “Right! Taichi Fujisaki, Fujiko Yamada, Aloysius Pennyworth, Fuhito Kirigiri-“

He showed no sign of stopping the list, so Takaaki allowed him to rattle off the names, wincing at the mention of Yuta. What a tragedy, for Ms. Asahina, who had already lost so much. He nodded politely when Kiyotaka finished speaking. “I’m… friends, with a few of them,” he hedged. There was no adequate title for Takemichi, who he had endured so much with - not one that didn’t ache. 

To his resigned dismay, Kiyotaka’s lower lip trembled at that. “I’ve never seen you have a friend!” he exclaimed, forever blunt and honest. Takaaki had been universally Barely Tolerated at his old workplace. 

“I have a friend now,” he repeated, lamely. “And…” For a moment, he debated the reveal in his mind. But his son had never judged him, over the years. “A wife.” 

Kiyotaka gaped at him, so he hurriedly continued. “Hiroko Hagakure. She’s-“

“Mother of Yasuhiro Hagakure, my classmate and-! Step brother! I would have had a step brother!” Kiyotaka flapped his hands against his legs in excitement. “I would like to meet her. Is she nice? Does she love you?”

He didn’t seem to notice that he’d gutted Takaaki in a single tense change.  _ Would have had _ . So many things his son would have had. A fulfilling life. An opportunity to make the changes he wanted to in the world. New things to experience, new challenges to conquer. He would give his own life without a moment’s thought if it meant Kiyotaka could have a chance at one. 

At last, he broke down. It had been inevitable. Seven years, and he’d barely managed them. The years both before and after his son had been so grey. Only through endless effort - both from him and the unfortunate few who attached themselves to him - had brought any light. But nothing and no one could ever replace Kiyotaka. He’d been such an exceptional boy. He would have been an amazing man.

Elbows on his knees, head in his hands, Takaaki did his best to conceal his shaking. Across from him, the simulation faltered, then- stood. And stepped hesitantly forward. 

And he hadn’t had a hug from his son in nearly a decade. 

For long minutes, he wept into Kiyotaka’s shirt. A shred of his Reasonable, Ashamed Brain hoped dully that he wasn’t crying on the odd gurney his real body was laying on. It was all he could do to keep from spilling every ridiculous word crossing his mind - it was too much to take on, trying to keep two sets of eyes from tearing. 

Kiyotaka was patting him awkwardly on the back and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it. There would obviously be no response to this coded in; he hadn’t cried in front of his son since he was four years old. Fujisaki’s creation was likely just trying to approximate support. 

This wasn’t his son. His son was gone. But god dammit, seeing him again had given him something he’d been lacking since hearing the terrible news. Permission to think about Kiyotaka. 

He’d been admonishing himself whenever his mind strayed to his late son all these years.  _ No point dwelling on the emotional or unproductive,  _ his father had taught him very clearly. The memories were too sharp and painful, every ray of sunlight casting a contrast on his ever-present storm cloud. He hadn’t been able to let Kiyotaka into his mind with anything other than anguish in years. 

Seeing him, now, was like needles in the chambers of his heart. So unchanged. Only missing his head wound. 

“I wish I’d gotten to see you grow,” he murmured, helpless, still leaning into Kiyotaka’s hold. 

“I’m sure I could approximate older versions of my features,” the program suggested weakly, still at a loss for how to treat him. 

No. As it turned out, both of his largest fears about the simulation had not occurred. The Kiyotaka AI was far too perfect, but he in no way wanted to stay forever. It was too uncanny, too unsettling. Not his true son. Never would be. 

“It’s alright. You can let go,” he told the programmed boy, feeling almost as though the words should have been being said to himself even as he was released. Kiyotaka was dead, and he could finally allow himself to hold that thought in his mind. This synthetic version was compelling for a time, but the differences were just too jarring. 

Kiyotaka would have been crying with him. His comfort would have come in a rush of words and tears, not a stilted hug with half hearted pats. It was his own fault for telling Fujisaki that his son had been hesitant about physical contact. This could never replace him, nor his memories. That somehow gave him more comfort than the simulation itself; knowing that Kiyotaka hadn’t been perfectly replicated and seeing for himself that logging out wouldn’t mean abandoning his son again was a wretched relief. If he’d been perfect, there was a real danger of Takaaki not wanting to log out, ever. He’d seen better men lost to less in the name of escaping their awful new reality. 

But at his prompting to release, the program had stepped away, smiling down at him sadly and sitting down again. Obviously his mixed feelings had filtered through the cortical link. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, tugging nervously at one perfect white sleeve. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I knew that this would upset me. You did nothing wrong,” Takaaki assured, exhausted by the emotional whiplash. “Thank you. This has been helpful.” 

If Fujisaki had been wanting to give him his son back, he’d certainly failed. The other man spent so much of his time talking to the replica of his own son- It wasn’t his place to judge. He’d had a sort of wretched hope, but no. His son was lost to him. Lost to them all. 

“It was good to see him,” Takaaki murmured into his wrist. Catching his word choice, Kiyotaka looked stricken for a moment, then nodded, body language changing to something more… default. 

“I’m sorry if I made a mistake,” Alter Ego responded. “Taka is fascinating to try a-“

“Please, no more.”

“I’m sorry.” The avatar sitting on the bed bit its lip. “I can send you back up, if you’re finished. But I’m sure master’s father would allow you back whenever you wished.”

“Are you saying that because he-“ Takaaki faltered. “Was his… subroutine, or whatever it’s called, really waiting, like he said? Will he be upset if I don’t visit regularly?”

Alter Ego looked down, closing its eyes. “Master’s father said it was important to make it clear that he would have missed you as well. But outside time has no meaning - we’re paused between visits.”

“Right.” He was gritting his teeth so hard he could feel his budget fillings crackle. 

“Would you like to go back now?”

“Give me a moment to compose myself.”

  
  
  
  


Predictably, he had a migraine when he opened his real eyes. He stubbornly sat up regardless, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and taking stock of himself. Looking around, he could see that Ms. Haneyama had already gone, while Ms. Yamada, Ms. Nakajima, and Takemichi remained unconscious. Taichi hurried to his bedside upon seeing him. 

“Here, let me check you over. The interface can be a lot, the first time. Can you tell me your name and the date?”

“Of course I can. I’m fine.”

“I- alright. ...how did it go?” The timid man was wringing his hands. 

Takaaki wasn’t sure how to respond. “I have a lot to process,” he settled on, heavily. His head hurt. His chest was worse. 

He waited for Takemichi to wake up so they could leave together, which didn’t take long. The young man’s quips about his ‘dead brother’ made him twitch - it seemed his ‘visit’ had also brought about mixed feelings. Fujisaki fretted over him for a moment, but they both seemed very ready to leave. 

As soon as Takemichi got his shoes back on, he was making for the door, but Takaaki lagged for a moment. “How frequently do you… do this? Yourself?” he asked Fujisaki, carefully.

The man smiled bitterly. “Almost every day,” he admitted. 

Against his better judgment, Takaaki opened his mouth, then faltered. “You should come for dinner one of these nights,” he finally managed, refusing to look him in the face. “Yasuhiro and Aoi Asahina will be over on Wednesday. Hiroko and I are going to make gyudon.”

Taichi looked startled. “I-! If it’s okay, I suppose- should I bring anything?” 

“No.” That was enough conversation. He needed air that wasn’t recirculated. He needed to be away from all of this. “6:15pm.”

“Okay-!”

Takaaki left to catch up with Takemichi without another word to Fujisaki. “How was he?” he asked the blond, matching his pace to the other’s easy lope. 

“Still dead,” Takemichi responded, bluntly. Maybe they’d had similar conclusions to their visits. Takaaki knew he would never ask. “But I feel better about it now. You?”

There was no easy answer he could give. “We’ll have to see, I think,” he answered gravely, which earned him a Look from Takemichi. The one he’d internally labelled as the ‘stop being so glum, old man’ expression. 

“Feels all weird to be back in my body. Wanna go get something to eat?”

“ _ Please _ .”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Please GOD read sagscrib’s original dreamland fic and the follow up, he’s the brain behind this


End file.
